Monday, November 8, 2010

Goa Trivia

  • Ants can find any food you drop before you finish eating or cooking, and then carry it up a wall
  • Papayas grow like weeds and smell like vomit
  • Entire families can easily fit on mopeds
  • No one has bug screens on windows and yet there are thousands of bugs out
  • Cockroaches have a shrill squeak in the middle of the night
  • Fishermen catch giant sting rays and then hit them on the heads with sticks
  • Horns are for honking all the time
  • Gypsys wear bright colors and recycle plastic and trash into all kinds of things to sell
  • Coconut tree climbers climb trees by tying their feet together
  • Wake up and smell the burning plastic and melting blue tarps
  • Tobacco and formaldehyde in your toothpaste…mmm
  • Everything is no problem…as in “Oh no, I lost my baggage!” “That is no problem madam.”
  • Construction workers don’t own any tools and ask you for hammers or wrenches
  • Pigs with big udders can run like the wind
  • Marble floors and concrete walls painted in bright colors can collect mold very quickly
  • Electrical outlets in the shower are a bad idea that someone forgot to tell Indian electricians
  • News travels faster in a village than gossip on facebook
  • Monsoons can really put a damper on things
  • Sleeping on wet mattresses is a kind of torture
  • Washing clothes in a bucket makes you really not want to wash clothes
  • Delhi Belly can really cramp your style
  • Rupees are often counterfeit and Indians won’t take them if they have even the tiniest rip on the edge
  • You can cook literally hundreds of things using only onions, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes and 200 spices
  • Electricity is something that comes and goes, and comes and goes
  • A vendors’ best selling tactic is yelling at you. The louder the better.
  • Cows have the right of way
  • Gunpowder is an ingredient in some recipes (optional, I hope?)
  • Standing in line is something that has not been invented. Just rush it.
  • Toilet paper is a commodity, but you can’t flush it
  • Traffic lights do not exist; traffic lanes and laws are a suggestion not a requirement
  • If you are a vendor’s first customer of the day, you can really bargain with them since it is bad luck for them if you don’t buy anything. Don’t worry---they mark everything up 500%
  • Shaking your head back and forth does not mean no
  • Cricket is like weird baseball and Indians are fanatics about it
  • Fireworks are for any occasion, really
  • You can blast any cheesy music on repeat all day if you own a set of bad speakers
  • Wells are where old men take baths, in front of our house
  • The breadman rides his bicycle with a bread basket by twice a day honking a bozo the clown horn. Buns cost 2.5 rupees each, but he will try to get you to buy them for 4.
  • Take off your shoes when you go into any store or stall, and don’t worry if a guy is welding over the entrance, just try to dodge the falling sparks and don’t look at the light
  • Ants and other bugs float. Rocks don’t.
  • Spiders come in all sizes, including the size of your hand
  • Earth-moving equipment = guys with buckets on their heads
  • It is good to name your taxi, laundrymat, breakfast cereals, and children after your favorite god


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